For Lee Pace, it has always seemed that bigger things have just been on the horizon. Most people probably recognize his face from his work on two shortlived, but acclaimed television shows “Wonderfalls” and “Pushing Daisies,” however, astute film fans have also picked up on his talents. He was great as the love interest in the underseen and hugely underrated charmer “Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day,” and he nearly stole the show as the arrogant documentary filmmaker Whit Coutell in Max Winkler‘s “Ceremony” and Hollywood has certainly sat up and taken notice. Pace is now part of two huge franchises with roles in the “Twilight: Breaking Dawn” films and in Peter Jackson‘s “The Hobbit” and now he can add one of the next year’s biggest pieces of Oscar bait to his schedule.

Steven Spielberg has cast Pace in his long gestating dream project “Lincoln.” Based on the best-selling book, “Team of Rivals,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and featuring a script by Tony Kushner (”Angels In America”), the film will focus “on the political collision of Lincoln and the powerful men of his cabinet on the road to abolition and the end of the Civil War.” Pace will play Fernando Wood, the New York City mayor who supported the Confederate cause and even suggested that the city secede from the Union, if only to keep up their valuable cotton trade.